MS CLAKE IS DOING A PHD WITH LUKE KENNARD AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY, ON THE FEMINIST ABSURD IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH POETRY JENNA CLAKE I...

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

Idiot America

What can an observer from abroad say, except, wha' happen? Two years ago, America briefly appeared sane, visionary, and remarkable, electing a bright, liberal African-American with a multicultural name as leader-in-chief. Flashforward, and pick yourself up from the floor - despite bringing in health care for 30 million poor people, winning the Nobel prize for Peace for arguing for nuclear disarmament, ending the Iraq war, and helping to avert a Second Depression - he is mocked by TV comedians for not doing "enough". Enough?

Isn't it enough to wake up every morning and Not Be Palin? Isn't believing in Global Warming, and trying to find justice in the middle east, and trying to contain violence enough? Despised by Tea Party nincompoops and nutjobs for doing too much, and derided by the "Left" for failing to turn America into Vermont overnight, Barack Obama has in fact been a very good, centre-left leader, in overwhelmingly tough times. Americans should have given him a hand, instead of making him walk the plank.

When they hand the Republicans a House Majority today, they will set back the cause of reform in the States by a generation. That'd be tragic, if it wasn't stupid first. The truth is, the tempest in the Tea Party was boiled up by the media, which increasingly generates hype and crisis daily, to fuel their own sense of vitality. Language is perhaps a virus, but Murdoch definitely is - can the boffins at Cambridge find a cure for him?